Chinese 323 Ascending Heights (3)Valerie's Selection:
Daoyun/Tao-yün (circa 400 c.e.)
"Climbing a Mountain"
High rises the Eastern Peak
Soaring up to the blue sky.
Among the rocks--an empty hollow,
Secret, still, mysterious!
Uncarved and unhewn,
Screened by nature with a roof of clouds.
Times and Seasons, what things are you
Bringing to my life ceaseless change?
I will lodge forever in this hollow
Where Springs and Autumns unheeded pass.
(Arthur Waley, A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, p. 120)
Travis' Selection:
Wang Wei (701-761)
"For Official Yang Who Stayed at Night at Zither Terrace and in the Morning Climbed to the Pavillion of Storing Books and Then Quickly Wrote Me a Poem"
You brush the dust away and read sutras on old bamboo slips,
waiting for the moon's company to play the singing lute.
In Peach Tree Spring people have never heard a Han name.
Certain pines are Qin Dynasty officials.
Few people return to this empty ravine.
The sunless face of the blue mountain is cold.
I envy you the place where you are perched,
watching a white cloud from far away.
(Wang Wei, Tony Barnstone, et. al., tr., Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei, p. 135)
Kelley's Selection:
Han Yu (768-824)
From "The South Mountains"
(Three extracts from a poem of 102 couplets, all ending on the same rhyme, about the mountains south of the capital Chang'an, including Zhongnan (South Mountain) and Taibo.)
Gazing as I climbed a high peak
I saw them huddle closer together,
Angles and corners jutting as the air brightened,
Emerging patterns in a needlework;
Or interfused in a steamy haze
Pierced through by sudden glimpses of heights and depths
As it drifted at random, winnowed without a wind,
And dissipated to warm the tender growths.
Sometimes a level plain of cloud settled
With scattered peaks exposed above,
Long eyebrows floating in the empty sky,
The lustrous green of paint newly touched up;
And a single strut of broken crag protruded,
The upreared beak of the Roc as it bathes in the sea.
In spring when the Yang waters in secret
And from deep within breathes up the glistening shoots,
Though cliff and crag loom tall against the sky
Their outlines soften like a drunken face.
In summer's flames, when the trees are at their prime
Dense and shady, and deeper bury the hills,
The magic spirit day by day exhales
A breath which issues in the shaping clouds.
While the autumn frosts delight in punishing
The hills stand starved and stripped, with wasted flanks
And sharp edges which zigzag across the horizon,
In inflexible pride scorning the universe.
Though winter's element is inky black
The ice and snow are master jewellers,
And the light of dawn shines over the dangerous peaks
Constant wide and high for a thousand miles.
In daylight or darkness never a fixed posture,
From moment to moment always a different scene.
North of the great lake of Kunming,
On a brilliant day, I came to view the mountain.
It dropped straight down as far as I could see
Trapped wrongside up and steeped in the clear water.
When ripples stirred on the face of the pool
The rowdy monkeys hopped and skipped,
Shrieked with amazement to see their shattered shapes,
Looked up and gaped with relief that they had not fallen in.
Fine weather since yesterday.
My old ambition is satisfied at last.
I've clambered all the way to the topmost peak,
Scurrying with the flying-squirrels and the weasels.
The road dips in front, the vista opens
Far and wide over crowded bumps and wrinkles,
Lined up in files like processions
Or crouched like grappling fighters,
Or laid low, as though prostrate in submission,
Or starting up like crowing pheasants;
Scattered like loose tiles
Or running together like converging spokes,
Off keel like rocking boats
Or in full stride like horses at the gallop;
Back to back as though offended,
Face to face as though lending a hand,
Tangled like sprouting bamboos
Or piled like moxa on a wound;
Neatly composed like a picture,
Curly like ancient script,
Constellated like stars,
Conglomerated like stationary clouds,
Surging like billows,
Crumbling like hoed soil,
And some like champions, Fen or Yu,
When the stakes are down, eager for the prize ahead,
The foremost and strongest rearing high above,
The losers looking foolish and speechless with rage;
Or like some majestic Emperor
And the vassals gathered in his court,
Even the nearest not too familiar,
Even the furthest never insubordinate;
Or like guests seated at a table
With the banquet spread before them,
Or like a cortege on the way to the graveyard
Carrying the coffin to the tomb:
And some in rows like pots
With others sticking up behind like vases:
Some carapaced like basking turtles,
Slumped like sleeping animals,
Wriggling like dragons fleeing into hiding,
Spreading wings like pouncing vultures;
Side by side like friends and equals,
Ranked as though in due degree,
Shooting apart like falling spray
Or introducing themselves like lodgers in an inn;
Aloof as enemies
Or intimate as man and wife,
Dignified as tall hats
Or flippant as waving sleeves,
Commanding like fortresses
Or hemmed in like hunted prey;
Draining away to the East
Or reclining with heads to the North,
Like flames in the kitchen stove,
Like the steam of a cooking dinner;
Marchers who will not halt
And the stragglers left behind,
Leaning posts which do not topple,
Unstrung bows which no one draws,
Bare like bald pates,
Smoking like pyres;
Unevenly cracked like diviners' tortoiseshells
Or split into layers like hexagrams,
Level across the front like Bo,
Or broken at the back like Gou.
(A. C. Graham, tr., Poems of the Late T'ang. Penguin. pp. 76-9)
Heidi's Selection:
Du Mu/Tu Mu (803-852)
"Written on the Water Pavilion of the Kaiyuan Temple in Xuanzhou; Below the Pavilion Is the Wan Stream, Lined with the Homes of People"
The cultured things of the Six Dynasties: now grass stretches to the sky.
Heavens broad, clouds move leisurely, past and present are one.
Birds come and go amid the mountain colors;
People sing and weep within the sound of water.
Curtains in the deep autumn, rain on a thousand homes.
Sinking sun on the terrace, one flute in the wind.
I'm depressed that there's no way to meet with Fan Li;
Scattered, the misty trees east of the Five Lakes.
(Paul Rouzer, tr., Writing Another's Dream, p. 208)
Result of Heidi's Indecision:
Wen Tingyun/Wen T'ing-yün (812-866)
"Setting out Early from Mount Shang"
At dawn I rise, stirring my carriage bells.
This traveler goes on, grieving for his home.
Cry of the cock, moon on the thatched inn;
Tracks of someone, frost on the plank bridge.
Oak leaves fall on the mountain road;
Orange blossoms brighten the post-station wall.
And so I long for my Duling dream;
Ducks and geese fill the curving pool.
(Paul Rouzer, tr., Writing Another's Dream, p.18)
Julia's Selection:
Li Shangyin/Li Shang-yin (812-855)
The flowers are bright, the willows dark, the heavens surrounded with sorrow.
Having climbed the double city walls, I climb the tower.
I wish to ask the lonely wild goose whither it is flying,
Not knowing that my own destiny is just as vague as his.
(James J.Y. Liu, The Poetry of Li Shang-yin, p. 120)
Catherine's Selection:
Wu Wenying/Wu Wen-Ying (ca. 1200-1260)
To the Tune of "Eight-Note Ganzhou"
"Visiting the Magic Cliff With Gentlemen At the Transport Office"
Endless emptiness, and mist into the four directions.
What year was it
When streaming stars plummeted from blue skies?
Luring of illusions--
Green crags and clouded trees,
Celebrated girl and her gilded chambers,
And ruins of overlord's palace walls.
On Arrow Path a stinging wind shoots into the eyes,
Creamy waters stains the stench of flowers.
Occasional afterechoes of lovebird slippers--
Autumn's sound of leaves in the corridors.
In the palace the King of Wu is in a drunken stupor,
Leaving the weary traveler of Five Lakes
To angle alone, O so sober.
Ask the blue waves--they do not speak.
How can my white-flecked hair bear the green of the hills?
The waters envelop the skies,
And the balcony's height.
Seeing off a chaos of crows, the slanting sun falls beyond Fisherman's Isle.
Again and again I call for wine,
And go off up the Harper's Terrace,
Where autumn is level with the clouds.
Catherine strongly objects to the fact that I revised the translation that she selected. Here is the one Cat favors:
To "Eight-Note Gan-zhou"
"Visiting the Magic Cliff with Various Gentlemen of the Transport Office"
Empty skies recede far into mists all around--
and when was it
that a streaming star came plummetingdown from blue skies?
The phantoms were conjured up:
trees in clouds upon gray slopes,the gilded chambers of the famous maid,
a broken overlord's walled palaces.
On Arrow Path a stinging wind shoots into the eyes,
and oily waters stained by the stench of flowers.
At times come afterechoes of her lovebird slippers--
autumn's sounds, leaves in the corridors.
In his palace the King of Wu lay in a drunken stupor,
all hangs on that weary wanderer on the Five Lakes
fishing alone, O so sober.
Ask the gray Heavens--they will not speak,
and my white-flecked hair cannot bear the green of hills.
The skies are drowned within these waters,
and from a high balcony,
I follow a chaos of crows in setting sunlight
that descend on the beaches of fishermen.Again and again I call for wine,
the go off up the Harper's Mound
where autumn is level with the clouds.
(Stephen Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature, p. 101)
Adeline's Selection:
Shen Zhou/Shen Chou (1427 - 1509)
"Untitled Poem Inscribed On a Painting by Himself"
White clouds like a scarf enfold the mountain's waist;
stone steps hang in space--a long, narrow path.
Alone, leaning on my cane, I gaze intently at the scene,
and feel like answering the murmuring brook with the music of my flute.
(Jonathan Chaves, The Columbia Book of Later Chinese Poetry, p. 172.)